Danny, the Champion of the World

Danny, the Champion of the World
Directed by	Gavin Millar
Written by	Novel: Roald Dahl Screenplay: John Goldsmith
Starring	Jeremy Irons Samuel Irons Robbie Coltrane
Studio	Thames Television The Disney Channel
Distributed by	Warner Bros. (UK, DVD)
Release date(s)	1989
Running time	95 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Danny, the Champion of the World is a 1989 film starring British Oscar winning actor Jeremy Irons, with his son, Samuel Irons, in the title role. It is based on the 1975 book by Roald Dahl, and tells of a father and son who conspire to thwart a local businessman's plans to buy their land by poaching his game pheasants.

Synopsis

William Smith (Jeremy Irons) lives with his nine-year-old son Danny (Samuel Irons) in a Vardo behind the garage where he works. The land that the garage is built upon is coveted by businessman Victor Hazell (Robbie Coltrane), who owns the surrounding land and lives in a large mansion. Hazell attempts to buy the Smith's land, but William turns him down. Used to getting his own way, Hazell begins a campaign of harassment, trying to force them off their land. William decides to poach Hazell's prized game pheasants in retribution, using raisins to lure the birds out, but comes home empty handed. A few nights later, he tries again, but falls into a pit and breaks his ankle. Danny, who had worried about William going out late at night, takes his father's car and rescues him from Hazell's groundskeepers.

Meanwhile, Danny begins a new term at school, with a new schoolmaster: Captain Lancaster (Ronald Pickup), a strict disciplinarian who practices corporal punishment and detests lateness and cheating. When the headmaster, Mr Snoddy (Lionel Jeffries), catches him caning Danny, he is given a severe reprimand.

Hazell announces a shooting event and invites several lords and other wealthy businessmen to come and hunt his pheasants. William and Danny decide to put a grand plan into action to poach all of Hazell's pheasants before the event, embarrassing Hazell in front of the people he wanted to impress. Danny hits upon the idea of using sleeping pills, given to William by Dr. Spencer (Cyril Cusack) for his broken ankle, to put the pheasants to sleep. They fill hundreds of raisins with ground-up pills in preparation. The next day, Captain Lancaster catches Danny sleeping in class; he makes Danny run around the school field as a punishment. Danny escapes by climbing a wall, and Lancaster resigns out of sheer frustration.

Danny's plan goes off without a hitch; soon, the garage is filled with sleeping pheasants. Hazell loses the respect of his peers, and one lord reveals that Hazell's real plan was to build a new town on the land he owns. Without the Smith's land, his plan cannot go ahead, and Hazell storms off while the Smiths and the rest of the village celebrate.

Cast

Changes from the book

The film is extremely faithful to the book for the most part, and all of the changes which were made to the story were relatively minor. For example, in the book, Hazell has no plans to build a town, and is simply humiliated in front of the assembled lords. Additionally, in the book, a pram is used to carry the pheasants to the Smith's land, whereas in the film, they are transported simply in bags. Also, in the book, the pheasants fly away almost immediately after waking up, rather than remaining on Smith's land for a while, as they do in the film.

DVD release

A Region 2 DVD was released in 2005 by Warner Bros. It includes a documentary feature called "Danny and the Dirty Dog" (referring to Victor Hazell, who is described as a "dirty dog" by Roald Dahl), which features interviews with Dahl, Irons, and Coltrane - the last-named remains in character as Hazell throughout.

References

External links

• Danny, the Champion of the World at the Internet Movie Database
• Time Out review